Purpose of this Blog

First and foremost, this blog is for me to capture my thoughts and comments about various things I found, read, seen, or heard about in relation to risk and uncertainty.  Not to mention it helps me flesh out research ideas by forcing me to articulate my thoughts in writing AND to respond to comments by interested parties.

Secondly, this blog will keep my people informed about the latest research and activities in risk and uncertainty modeling, and how it relates to security and safety risk analysis problems

About Me

I am on the security risk analysis faculty in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University.  At Penn State, the focus of my research is on all things risk, to include developing quantitative, qualitative, and descriptive security risk analysis processes designed to meet the unique decision support needs of various stakeholders.  My current research themes include attacker reasoning and deception in cyber security and extreme events systems science.  Prior to this position, I worked as a risk professional and methodologist as both employee and consultant (at different times, of course) to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other government and private enterprises.

For more details on my experience and credentials, check out my Curriculum Vitae (perpetually in development).

What to Expect From Me

The content of this blog will consist of, but is not limited to, the following types of posts:

• Reviews of papers and books and theses on the subject of risk and uncertainty analysis
• Summaries and thoughts for teaching security risk analysis
• Announcements and live-blogging of conferences related to risk and uncertainty
• Descriptions of seminars and talks I attended related to risk and uncertainty
• Summaries of cool risk and uncertainty-related projects done by my peers and students
• Job opportunities I come across in the area of security risk analysis
• My personal (and sometimes random) thoughts on issues related to risk and uncertainty

What I Hope to Get From You

As I mentioned earlier, I write primarily for myself and my imagined audience.  But I also write to elicit feedback from readers in general.  I will make every attempt to address comments to my posts in subsequent posts, if not directly in the comments section of a particular thread.

My Contact Information

To contact me outside of this blog, send me an email at one of the following addresses:

• willmcgill@professormcgill.com (my pseudo-personal email address)
• wmcgill@ist.psu.edu (my academic email address)

The savvy Internet user could obtain additional information just by searching the net.

Send post as PDF to